


Ley Lines

by pinstripedJackalope



Series: TGGTVAV Challenge Fics [12]
Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Childhood Friends, Constellations, Dubious Science, Earthquakes, M/M, Magic, Science Fiction, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Stars, and a big fuck you to henri montague sr, celestial soulmarks, constellations are marks right, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25273879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope
Summary: The last case in the back of the grocery store has always been Percy’s favorite.One hundred percent grade A freeze-dried stardust, the packages inside read.Do not ingest.
Relationships: Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton
Series: TGGTVAV Challenge Fics [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638925
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37
Collections: TGGTVAV AU Challenge Fics





	1. Storebought

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldenthunderstorms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenthunderstorms/gifts), [em_gray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/gifts).
  * Inspired by [on the shelf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25018051) by [goldenthunderstorms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenthunderstorms/pseuds/goldenthunderstorms). 



> Another TGGTVAV challenge fic ahoy! This one takes the 'shelf over the bed' from @goldenthunderstorm's fic _on the shelf_. Cheers!

Photo credit [here](https://a-ghost-named-k.tumblr.com/post/625764133787271168/ley-lines-moodboard-photo-credit-under-the-cut).

The last case in the back of the grocery store has always been Percy’s favorite. Ever since he was a little kid, hanging onto his Aunt’s sure hand, he’s been drawn to it. Back before he could read the labels, before he understood what stars really were, why they were important, what they stood for… before he knew what a soulmate actually was, he was drawn to that case and the glowing packages within.

It had to do with the otherworldly nature of them, he figured, little fingers pressed to the glass. Unlike the flickering fluorescent lights that hurt his eyes, the glow of the packages within was soft and pleasant, like something out of a comic book but better because it was _real_. He’d stand there and stare at the incandescent, pulsating light until his Aunt tugged on his hand to guide him away once more.

As he grew, he learned the significance of the packages. He was old enough to read the labels by then— _one hundred percent grade A freeze-dried stardust_ , they read. _Do not ingest._ He saw commercials on the vidiscreens all the time— _if you can_ _’t utilize natural celestial bodies, then store-bought is fine!_ Freeze-dried stardust was meant as a means to find your soulmate—the artificial constellations it created were for people who couldn’t see the Marks in the night sky, the real constellations that stretched between the stars. _Place stardust in any clear glass jar. Hold the jar in your hands until you see, feel, or hear a constellation line. Follow the line_ , the instructions on the back said. A disclaimer in smaller writing below it declared that it wouldn’t work for everyone and the packaging company was not liable for any injuries that occurred while following a constellation line.

On his tenth birthday, Percy’s Aunt bought him a package of his very own as a birthday present. He was eager as he tore open the package and dumped the contents in a jar. He sat up late that night, arms curled around the jar, his sleepy eyes watching and waiting as the chunk of stardust pulsed with white light. It pulsed, and pulsed, but no matter how long he watched a line never appeared. He fell asleep like that, still waiting waiting waiting.

“It’s all fake anyway,” said Monty, his very best friend, the next day. He was in a mood and didn’t want to play, and had instead sat himself in the nook under the table in the lobby of their super-cell with his arms crossed. He flinched when Percy leaned into his side, and Percy hurriedly sat up straight again.

“Did you get hurt?” Percy asked, all thoughts of soulmates leaving his mind. He reached out to lift Monty’s shirt, only to be batted away.

“I just think it’s stupid,” Monty said. “Lines in the sky and whatever… it’s dumb. No one believes that.”

Percy hummed, sitting back. “A lot of people believe it,” he said. “I believe it.”

Monty’s eyes cut over to him and away again quickly. “Even if it is true, neither of us have ever seen a constellation. We’re both stuck stag.”

“Well, then we’ll be stuck stag together,” Percy said, and this time when he pulled at Monty’s shirt Monty let him, exposing a lacework of bruises along his ribs. Percy’s fingers hovered over the marks, over fingerprints so much larger than his own. He sighed. Then, tugging Monty up, he said, “Come on, let’s get you some ice.”

Monty wasn’t the only skeptic Percy knew. Not that Monty was always a skeptic—sometimes, when the night was late and they were far, far away from Monty’s penthouse apartment, he would admit that he wanted a soulmate. More than anything, he’d say. He always got this wistful look in his eyes, staring out the window toward the stars that were visible between the structures of the neighboring super-cells. Percy wished, sometimes, that he could be Monty’s soulmate just to wipe away the longing in Monty’s eyes. But he wasn’t, and as he watched, unable to help, Monty would sigh, and a shutter would come over his eyes, and the older he got the less he’d look out the windows until it seemed like he didn’t look at all. 

When they were fifteen, and Percy had collected six jars of stardust on the shelf over his bed (one for each birthday), he leaned over in his desk chair to nudge Monty with his foot. “Are we going out tonight?” he asked.

“Of course,” Monty said. He was flat on his back on the bed, his arm thrown over his eyes, his fingers tapping. He was the sort of person who never seemed to stay entirely still—it was like his vibrant personality was a physical thing, an energy, thrumming through him.

Percy hummed. “…Will we be meeting Amelia there, or here?” he asked, schooling his face into a mask of indifference.

He wasn’t expecting the answer that came. The one that went, “Neither. Me and Amelia are done.” 

Percy pursed his lips, not daring to let his hopes rise. “But you just started seeing her,” he said.

“Yes, well. I wouldn’t want to deprive anyone else of a shot.” Monty then lowered his arm and grinned that charming, dimpled grin of his that always made Percy’s cheeks heat up. 

He forced the heat back down again. He couldn’t allow himself to believe that Monty meant _him_ —Monty would never fall for Percy. The two of them… it wasn’t in the stars. He wasn’t Monty’s type—not outgoing or flirtatious or stunning. He wasn’t the quick, fun flings that Monty sought out. He wasn’t anybody, really. He was just boring old Percy, the one who sat to the side as Monty flirted and nudged the water glass over to make sure his best friend had some water with his liquor. 

He couldn’t count the number of times that he’d watched Monty walk away with someone else on his arm.

That night was no different. It was hardly an hour into the night when Monty started chatting up a boy at the bar. He was from their sector of the school cell, though Percy couldn’t recall exactly who he was. A jock, maybe. He sighed, nursing his own glass for a long moment. He watched Monty wink over his shoulder as the two of them left together before deciding that fuck it, he was out, might as well drink. He screwed up his courage, screwed up his face, and downed the glass.

He was slightly drunk when he found himself in the supermarket two hours later. It was no use waiting around for Monty on nights like these—Monty might seek him out after the act, but he also might not, and either way Percy was going to have to deal with the thick sludge of jealousy that was rising in his lungs. It was the only thing weighing him down when the rest of him felt dangerously untethered.

Without thinking, Percy walked foot in front of foot to the back of the store, to the stardust. Leaning on the display case, he stared longingly for a few minutes before realizing that he wasn’t ten anymore—if he wanted to buy himself some stardust, there was nothing stopping him. Except maybe the cost, anyway.

So he picked up a package. And then two. Three. Four. Until his arms were full and the teenaged cashier let out a snort and muttered something about being desperate for love under her breath. Percy didn’t care—he was too busy shoving stardust packages into a recyclable bag. He got home to his room a few minutes later, and got to work prying the packages open, tipping each one into one of the jars that his Aunt had started saving for him. He pushed them onto the shelf over the bed until no more could fit. He frowned for a moment, before he remembered the hooks in the room’s ceiling, meant for hanging clothes-lines to dry clothes—he hit the button to pop them out, carefully tying the jars to bits of string and hanging them from the ceiling.

At the end of the night, Percy had hung seventeen glowing jars. The light from all the stardust illuminated the room when he turned off the light, pulsating in varying rhythms. Percy, sitting on his bed with the fold-out table unhooked from the wall and folded out beside him, looked at the package in his hands.

It was the only one left. He’d run out of jars, and it seemed rude to double up the stardust chunks. They each deserved their own space to do their thing, to gleam and glow and guide. Even if they were fickle and ever-changing, even if they had never worked for him. He found them as fascinating now, at fifteen, as he did when he was a kid. 

_Maybe_ , he though, _I_ _’ve just been doing it wrong_. He breathed out, turning the package over and over and over before slowly peeling back the plastic. His fingers hovered over the chunk, and he felt as if he could physically sense the pulse beating through it. It was hypnotic, and he felt lost in it’s rhythm. If he held it, if he put everything he could into finding his soulmate… maybe it would finally lead him where he needed to go.

With careful fingers, he picked up the stardust and closed his eyes. It was cool and dry in his palm as he cradled it close. _This is it,_ he thought. He poured everything he could into the piece of the cosmos in his hands and then, slowly, he opened his eyes to find…

…nothing.

A snarl curled his lip. One thing, he just wanted this _one thing_. He could live with Monty going out all night with other people, he hated it but he could live with it. What he couldn’t live with was knowing that not only had Fate said Monty couldn’t be his, it had also said that no one else would be, either. There was no one out there for him to find, no other half of his soul just waiting on the other side of a constellation. There was nothing. Forever and always, _nothing_.

He curled his hand into a fist, crushing the stardust. It crumbled like dry sand, and when he uncurled his fingers it slipped through the gaps like the useless dust it was, little glowing particles drifting down, down, down.

He woke in the morning with a headache, curled up on top of his sheet. The stardust was still glowing, but faintly, in the light of the morning. Monty had left a text on his pocket-comp, a simple _goodnight, darling_.

Percy bit his lip, absently drawing his pointer finger through the stardust. He felt less angry than he did last night. Because it wasn’t all that bad, he reasoned. He still got goodnight texts from Monty—wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t it enough to love him from afar, even if they weren’t meant to be?

He stared down at the little design he’d made in the dust. There was an idea, prodding at the back of his mind. Something he’d seen once—a video of someone painting with stardust. They’d made these beautiful glowing canvases, all alight with the essence of the stars. Percy bit his lip, slowly looking up toward all the jars hung above him.

He wasn’t Fated to find his soulmate. That was true. But there were thousands, millions of people in the city. Who knew how many of them weren’t lucky enough to be able to afford a jar of stardust? Who knew how many of them yearned, longed, for a constellation to follow?

Who knew how many of them were one package of stardust away from finding their soulmate, but couldn’t for one reason or another?

Maybe Percy wasn’t Fated to find someone, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help someone else.


	2. Stardust

Two Years Later

***

Standing at the base of his home cell, Percy hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder before tapping the toe of his shoe twice against the ground. With a click, the wheels in the sole rotated into place. He tested them on the ground to make sure they were all the way out before he did the same with his other shoe, kicking his foot out to hear the ball-bearings spin. Satisfied, he quickly glanced around before pulling up his hood and pushing off from the wall.

The journey through the city was as beautiful as ever. The graceful, elongated pyramid shapes of the super cells cut triangles into the sunset, bridges like strands of soot-dusted spider silk stretching between. Percy kept an even pace, left-stroke and glide and right-stroke and glide, the cans of hand-mixed paint rattling in his backpack as he turned corners. 

His destination tonight was the Jacaranda Bridge, one of the lower bridges between two of the largest civilian super-cells. It was currently under construction, blocked off from the public. They had poured a batch of fresh cement a few hours ago according to the report on the city registry, which meant it was the perfect time to get in, do something not-particularly-legal, and get out again.

He arrived as the sky was dipping into purples and blacks. He’d forgotten to put up his hair, and curls were falling around his face as he ducked under the construction tape blocking off the area and edged around the fresh concrete toward the wall on the far side. Quickly looking around, Percy slipped his bag from his shoulders, snatching up a can. He shook it quickly and raised it to the wall, beginning to work. 

The picture flowed from his hand. The body of a violin, the scroll, the strings and bow… and then a staff, lines strung with musical notes swirling up from the instrument, a melody that he made up himself. It was a simple thing, inspired by the stars. He stepped back after a few minutes, fingers dusted with glowing paint, admiring his work. Without thinking, Percy brushed his hair back from his face, accidentally streaking paint through the strands. He made a face when they got in his mouth, screwing up his nose at the taste. He hated it when that happened—it was so bitter, and it stained his tongue a glowing white for hours afterward. 

Shaking his head, Percy stowed his paints away and set off once more. Hopefully if he kept his mouth closed he wouldn’t be stopped by any peace enforcers, but just in case he took the scenic route through the city, winding through the less populated areas. Admittedly, taking this route wasn’t just in the hopes of keeping out of view. He passed quite a few of his older tags going this way. They glowed in the dimness of the city at night, pulsing in slow rhythms. Even the ones that had been painted over were visible at this time of the night, the glow of stars shining through the paint covering them. The stardust was still there, after all—covering it up couldn’t hide the light of the cosmos themselves. Not completely.

His favorite was one at the base of the Mesa Super-Cell. It wasn’t the best drawn—it was one of the first he ever did, actually, all shaky lines and paint drips. What he liked about it was the note scrawled on the wall next to it in black sharpie— _helped me find my soulmate, thank you_. It made him happy, knowing that he’d helped at least one person in this vast, lonely city. Probably more, hopefully more… but at least one. 

Skating slowly past the base of the super-cell, Percy stretched a hand out to run his fingers along the graffiti on the side. He wondered who that person was, if they were happy now that they’d found their soulmate. It must be nice. He himself had been alone for a while now—four months, to be exact. Ever since Monty had been sent away to a prestigious boarding school in the neighboring city he’d been alone, with no one but his Aunt and Uncle to talk to. He was eager to get home and check his pocket comp—hopefully he’d have a new text-thread from Monty. 

…Except it would probably be about Monty’s new crush, Sinjon. Percy sighed. He would take just about anything at this point, but reading about Sinjon’s beautiful blue eyes from the perspective of the boy he was in love with was a specific kind of torture. It made him ache, to know that Monty was out there searching out others. He didn’t know how long he’d been in love with Monty—perhaps he always was. It certainly felt like forever. Like it had no beginning and would have no end. It was an immutable truth. 

Looking up at the few stars visible in the sky, Percy hummed. It was what it was. Monty would return for the holidays in another month’s time, and then it would be the two of them against the world once more. In the meantime he would have to do with his paint, and the city, and the stars to keep him company.

And, perhaps, some coffee. It would be nice to have a cup or two to wash the taste of paint out of his mouth. Monty’s Sinjon thread could wait. With that decided, Percy turned a corner at the Oak Bridge and—

—promptly let out a cry and skidded to a halt as the city _lit up_.

For a split second, he had no idea what was going on. The super-cells and the bridges and the streets far below, all of them were alight, illuminated by a line of brilliant white that seemed to be floating in the air before him, beads of light pulsating along its length. When Percy followed them with his eyes he realized that they were moving as if to entice him to follow, the line heading straight back the direction he had just been headed before he decided to go for coffee. Pulse and pause and pulse and pause and—

It was that, the motion enticing him to follow, that made it click in his head. This… this was a constellation line. His first ever. It must have been lit from one of the tags he’d put up in the city somewhere. And Percy… the kid who had stared at the display case of stardust in the supermarket, who had collected jars of stardust, who had looked longingly up at the stars for years and years and years… felt a sense of dread as he looked down the line, to where it disappeared into the depths of the city, in the opposite direction of Monty. 

He swallowed heavily, watching the slow pulse of the starlight fueling the constellation line. He couldn’t just ignore it. Well… he could, in a literal sense. He could go about his life pretending not to see it. But that wasn’t really fair to whoever was on the other end of the line, now was it? 

Taking a slow, deep breath, Percy braced one toe on the concrete and, willing his stomach to settle, pushed off. Stroke and glide and stroke and glide… slowly building speed… the city and the late night people beginning to blur past… he swallowed the visceral fear of not knowing who he would find at the end of the line and kept going.

Past the Agricultural Cells.

Past the Governmental Cells.

Past bridges and canals and tags.

Until… he paused, looking up. It was his own super-cell, at the center of three constellation lines, all three pointing toward it. The pulsing light was speeding up now, as if to tell him to hurry, hurry, and he swallowed hard before he tapped the wheels back into the soles of his shoes, crossed the street, and strode into the lobby.

The lines converged at the elevator, as if to direct him inside. He went, stepping inside and pausing there, hitting the up button while he waited for further instruction. He tapped nervous fingers on his thighs, pulling his hood back from his face with paint-speckled hands as the numbers above the door climbed higher and higher. 

It was as he was passing his own floor that he realized that his pocket comp was silent in his pocket. Normally it would have buzzed with Monty’s nightly messages the moment Percy entered the lobby doors, signaling that they’d come through. But there was nothing.

Feeling uneasy, Percy was just about to pull out his pocket comp to send off a message of his own when a line suddenly sprouted from his chest—or, rather, _through_ his chest. It was coming from the paint cans in his backpack, and was headed up toward… toward…

Percy swallowed heavily, watching as the number above the door neared 300, the number of the super-cell’s penthouse, where Monty had lived all his life.

No. It couldn’t be. Percy didn’t dare believe it. Why wouldn’t Monty have told him he was coming back? Unless he was in trouble—unless something had happened, something bad. If Monty was his soulmate—and that _if_ was getting smaller by the second—then Percy had never needed to be guided to his soulmate because he was already there with him, the two of them side by side all their lives. The fact that Monty needed him now, _right_ now, and never before, even when he’d been bruised and bloodied and beaten— _god_ —this couldn’t be good.

The elevator reached the top and dinged, the doors sliding open. Percy stumbled out, his hands suddenly shaking. His head was swimming, the world swirling about him as he followed the line right up to the penthouse door. It was pulsating in an almost frantic beat now, light darting from him to the door in short, staccato bursts.

He didn’t bother to knock. The door was keyed to his palm—he thrust his hand at the scanner and it opened to the entrance hall. 

It looked at first as if no one was home. All the lights were out, but that didn’t matter, not with the constellation line flooding the entire place in white—Percy dropped his backpack and staggered forward, into the livingroom and then up the staircase to the second level, which housed the bedrooms and the nursery and, the place that pooled dread in Percy’s heart, Monty’s father’s study. He’d heard enough stories about what happened there, after all. He’d put enough pieces together to understand. 

…There was light shining around the edges of the door. Yellow light, lamplight. And from inside, piercing through the silence that permeated the rest of the penthouse, a cry that Percy would recognize anywhere.

The white constellation line coming from the bag behind him shattered at the sound, splintering into a thousand streams of light like sunlight splitting in a prism. A thousand, a million, more—fibers of a rope frayed into an infinity of colors—dazzling, brilliant, and _utterly incomprehensible_. Percy blinked and the light did not dim—it did not darken. He looked down and saw not floor but massive streams of light. He raised his hand and saw not skin and hair and nails but smaller strings of light. 

It was frightening. It was terrifying. And then, all at once, he understood—this was the light of the universe flowing through the buildings and the streets also flowing through him, seen as the stars themselves see. He knew without knowing how that this was the energy he was made of, the heat and motion and light that created the very atoms of his being. The ley lines of the universe were exposed to him, and he was part of them, just as everything was part of them, just as everything always had been and always would be.

“ _This will teach you to muck around with boys_ ,” said a voice through the white light of the door, and Percy drew his gaze up and saw things as they truly were—the bond of light, the constellation line leading him to the energy that made up Monty, clean and brilliantly bright. And another line, another bond, between Monty and the man towering over him—thick and staticky, sickly and flickering as the man raised his hand in a fist.

Percy raised his hand once more, all light and brilliance, and the sliding door before him was wrenched off its rails. He stepped inside, and heard a gasp, an involuntary inhale. “Percy, your eyes…” said Monty’s voice, from the cowering bundle of energy on the floor. Percy tipped his head, turning said eyes from Monty to the man standing over him.

“Step away,” Percy said, an order and an imperative.

The man, Monty’s father, did not. Rancid blue-red light curled in his chest, anger and fear and disgust. “This does not concern you,” he said.

“Step away,” Percy said again.

Monty’s father sneered, his fist still raised. Monty, on the floor clutching the blazing orange light of blood and bruises on his chest, was staring at Percy, at his father, his eyes flicking back and forth, unsure who to focus on.

“Step away,” Percy said, one final time.

The man did not. 

Well then. Percy again raised his hands, and as he watched the ley lines winding through the city all fluxed all at once, pulsing toward them. What followed was a tremor from the earth itself, seismic activity rattling through the super-cell from the ground up, shaking the building’s foundations. Percy hardly felt a thing—his feet had left the floor some time ago, floating several inches above the sleek, glowing floors.

Monty’s father stumbled, throwing his hand out to catch himself on the desk beside him. “What did you do?!” he demanded, terror coiling inside him and flowing from his throat. “You _freak_ , how did you _do that_?” When Percy did not respond, he spun on his son, reaching out to grab him.

Monty, whose eyes had been on Percy, jerked away from his father’s reaching hands. Percy stepped between them, but the man just lunged to the side, seizing a weighted ornament from the desk and raising it menacingly. Percy could see the intent inside him—his visceral terror, his hatred, his disgust, all of it coiled up tight into a murderous rage under his diaphragm. He was standing between them and the door, and he’d kill them before he let them leave.

Percy raised his hands, but he could feel Monty’s fear behind him. Not just fear of his father, which was nearly overwhelming, but also fear of the earth quaking and the building collapsing. Percy knew it was a fear founded in reality—another tug, another yank, and Percy could bring the whole building and all the people in it down. He wanted to save Monty, wanted to be free of this, but god— _not like that_.

He needed to think fast, needed to come up with a solution before Monty’s father snapped and started to swing. He needed to get Monty somewhere safe, somewhere where the pain would heal. He needed to get them out, needed to free them—and just like that, his eyes fell onto the glowing panes of the window.

“Oh, no,” Monty said, following his gaze, but Percy was already in motion, diving underneath the first swing of the ornament to grab Monty by the waist. He hefted his best friend, his soulmate, into his arms and turned to the window. He could feel the ley lines trembling below them, waiting as he dove away from Monty’s father, backing away with Monty held close. The man swung again, and then again, and Percy watched as the lines of white light snapped like lightning through the air, the frenzy building until Percy was backed up right against the resin of the window.

He watched, as if in slow motion, as the man raised the ornament one last time. Then, with a definitive _yank_ , Percy wrenched the window out of its tracks, tearing through the wall and the floor both in one fell swoop.

There was a moment, a weightless moment, as Percy stepped out into open air. Monty’s father jerked, already swinging, the momentum forcing him out after them. His eyes went wide as he realized that there was nothing to grab onto, and then he was falling just as surely as they were falling, all three of them gripped by the decisive fist of gravity.

Except. Percy laughed, watching as the ley line above the street below reached up gentle fingers to hold him and Monty, responding to the stardust in Percy’s mouth, his eyes, his stomach, his blood. It held them as if to say hello, as if to tell them they were safe here, as if to remind them that they were part of the cosmos.

 _Do not ingest_ , the packages of stardust said. Percy, holding Monty tight in his arms, glowing tears brimming in his eyes, laughed and laughed and laughed.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the phoenix and the flame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27102517) by [goldenthunderstorms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenthunderstorms/pseuds/goldenthunderstorms)




End file.
